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For the first 98 percent of human history, work not only met our material needs, but also served as an outlet for creativity, community, and a prime means for a fulfilling life. Anthropologist inform us that these ancestors did not distinguish between work and leisure, that they even lacked a word for work, and that their work could readily be likened to play. But over the past five centuries, work has been stripped largely of these positive attributes and reduced to a mere means to gain income to enable consumption. However, our quest for fulfilment and the urgent need to avoid ecological Armageddon resulting from excess consumption compels us to recover the potential of work to provide us with meaning, social and self-respect, and community.
In this book, economist Jon D. Wisman explores the evolution of work over the full course of human history. Drawing on economics, philosophy, evolutionary psychology, social anthropology, and history, his book critiques the dominant laissez-faire ideology that prioritizes consumption and growth over fulfilment in work and community. Chapters detail the history of work and our attitudes toward it. It then offers a new vison of our future that focuses on work and community. This vision is built upon two reforms that preserve capitalism s two principal social institutions of private property and markets: guaranteed work at living wages with benefits and retraining where necessary, and measures that move us toward instituting democracy in the workplace. These reforms extend human freedom and democracy while addressing the absurdity that while we live with unprecedented abundance, we increasingly suffer extreme inequality, insecurity, pessimism concerning our futures, and political polarization that threatens democracy.
List of contents
Chapter 1: Introduction We All Must Work.- Chapter 2: Work In a State of Nature.- Chapter 3: Eden Lost The Rise of The State and Work Degraded.- Chapter 4: Victory Over Scarcity.- Chapter 5: What Abundance Promised Got Crushed.- Chapter 6: The Urgent Need to Humanize Work and Recover Community.- Chapter 7: Creative Destruction and Security with Guaranteed Employment.- Chapter 8: Creating Democracy Freedom and Community in the Workplace.- Chapter 9: Final Reflections.
About the author
Jon D. Wisman is Professor of Economics at American University in Washington, D.C. He served as President of the Association for Social Economics in 2002, has twice been selected by American University as the Outstanding Teacher of the Year, and in 2023 he was selected as Scholar/Teacher of the Year, the highest award given by American University. He was also a recipient of the 2023 Veblen-Commons Award, in recognition of his significant contributions to the evolutionary institutional economics.
Summary
For the first 98 percent of human history, work not only met our material needs, but also served as an outlet for creativity, community, and a prime means for a fulfilling life. Anthropologist inform us that these ancestors did not distinguish between work and leisure, that they even lacked a word for work, and that their work could readily be likened to play. But over the past five centuries, work has been stripped largely of these positive attributes and reduced to a mere means to gain income to enable consumption. However, our quest for fulfilment and the urgent need to avoid ecological Armageddon resulting from excess consumption compels us to recover the potential of work to provide us with meaning, social and self-respect, and community.
In this book, economist Jon D. Wisman explores the evolution of work over the full course of human history. Drawing on economics, philosophy, evolutionary psychology, social anthropology, and history, his book critiques the dominant laissez-faire ideology that prioritizes consumption and growth over fulfilment in work and community. Chapters detail the history of work and our attitudes toward it. It then offers a new vison of our future that focuses on work and community. This vision is built upon two reforms that preserve capitalism’s two principal social institutions of private property and markets: guaranteed work at living wages with benefits and retraining where necessary, and measures that move us toward instituting democracy in the workplace. These reforms extend human freedom and democracy while addressing the absurdity that while we live with unprecedented abundance, we increasingly suffer extreme inequality, insecurity, pessimism concerning our futures, and political polarization that threatens democracy.
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